Actress Demi Moore partners with CNN Freedom Project for a
compelling documentary. A passionate advocate for victims of human trafficking
herself, Moore travels to Nepal to meet 2010 CNN Hero of the Year Anuradha
Koirala and some of the thousands of women and girls Koirala’s organization has
rescued from forced prostitution. Premieres Sunday, June 26 MORE
DETAILS & TIMES

Dawn breaks in Nepal, a nation
whose natural beauty brings tourists from across the globe.

Sun glints off the Himalayas and in the ancient capital, Kathmandu, trekkers
gear up for a day of sightseeing and adventure.

Amid the beauty is devastating poverty which provides fertile ground for one
of man’s horrors – human trafficking and sexual slavery.

Nepal is a major hub for traffickers luring girls into brothels in India with
promises of well-paid – or at least better paid – jobs.

Fighting the traffickers is a small, dedicated band whose limited resources
are stretched.

They work with border guards trying to stop women being taken across the
border, and in India’s red light districts rescuing women from prostitution, and
in Nepal’s villages educating girls about the dangers.

At the Maiti Nepal complex Tulli is packing her bag as other girls pray or
eat breakfast while others are busy sweeping.

Tulli gets to say goodbye to her best friend in the facility and jumps into a
minivan for the six-hour drive into the mountains to her home village.

For parts of the journey, the road is the same one where she first met the
man who trafficked her into India. It’s also the same road that has her favorite
tea restaurant.

Koirala said the town was particularly bad for trafficking because it’s a key
stopping point for buses heading to Kathmandu. She explained traffickers are
able to lure girls with promises, drug them and spirit them away.

Koirala said: “Tulli was looking after her brother’s shop in the village and
one day she met a man who said it’s better in a bigger place and he said I will
find you a better job.”

She went into town to buy supplies for the shop and did not return.

“At first they (her family) thought she was in the relative’s house and they
looked there and could not find her.

“Then afterwards they knew she had disappeared somewhere. They didn’t tell
anyone, they just waited and then later they got the message that she had been
trafficked.”

Despite knowing where Tulli was, it took the help of two volunteer groups and
would be months before she was ready to make the return home.

Its uniformed border guards work with, but separate from, the border police
and Koirala says every day, on average, they intercept 20 girls at risk of being
trafficked. All of the Maiti Nepal guards are rescued sex slaves.

Koirala said: “They watch every girl and they watch the men as well and every
vehicle. As soon as they catch someone, (one) takes the boy and (another) takes
the girl and they cross-question them. If after questioning they find what they
are saying is not true they hand over the boy to the police station and they
take the girl to the transit home.”

But the odds are stacked in favor of the traffickers. Maiti Nepal estimates
it has rescued more than 12,000 women in its 20-year history. That’s about the
same number of Nepalese women and girls believed to be trafficked to India each
year.

The Maiti Nepal guards interrogate travelers looking for inconsistencies – is
that old man really the young girl’s grandfather; is that woman really taking
her daughter for a family reunion? – and suspicious signs that could identify a
trafficker.

The police officers who largely take a back seat during the questioning will
respond when Maiti Nepal guards believe they have found a trafficker but police
Inspector Birenda Godra said they simply don’t have the resources themselves to
actively look for offenders.

Koirala said: “Cooperation between the police and Maiti Nepal has always been
very good ever since 1994. Officially there are 26 borders between Indian and
Nepal. Sometimes we have problems with police but you can’t put them all in the
same basket.”

Godra said the biggest problem was not having the manpower to properly work
the 2,500-kilometer (1,700-mile) border which Nepalis and Indians can cross
without a passport or ID card.

Tulli was one of those shipped across the border and taken to Kolkata. Delhi
and Mumbai are other popular destinations for traffickers.

She spent about six weeks at the brothel and says was forced to have sex with
up to 20 men a day, before getting up the courage and the chance to try to
escape.

Knowing she was taking a huge risk, Tulli asked a Nepalese client to help get
word to her brother in Nepal. He agreed to make the phone call and then the
brother, with Maiti Nepal’s help, traveled to Kolkata to help rescue her.

Maiti Nepal put the family in touch with an Indian group called Rescue
Foundation, which joined Indian police in an operation to free Tulli.

Almost every rescued woman spends time, like Tulli has, at Maiti Nepal’s
Kathmandu facility, receiving counseling and training.

It also helps build legal cases against the traffickers and has a school for
about 300 children – some of whom were trafficked with their mothers, some of
whom were rescued from living rough on the streets.

And there’s a separate hospice building, about 12km north of Kathmandu, which
looks after survivors with HIV.

Gita’s story is depressingly familiar. She was an orphan lured to India by
the false hope of finding her parents.

Koirala said Gita spent two years in a brothel before being rescued and she’s
been at Maiti Nepal for the seven years since her rescue – living with HIV
because condoms were not allowed in the brothel.

Gita said: “Sometimes I think it’s just hopeless. Then at other times I think
Maiti Nepal is there and they are teaching me a craft then I think I can survive
with.”

Women in both centers also have to learn to live with the mental scars left
by their ordeals.

Now Tulli is ready to return home. She says she knows her family will treat
her kindly but she does not know about the wider community.

At 3,500 meters (11,500 feet) above sea level the view from the cluster of
metal-roofed shacks is breathtaking.

Although emotions run high, Tulli’s reunion with her parents maintains the
traditional, respectful formality of her culture, and her brother thanks Koirala
for bringing Tulli home.

But among those waiting is a small girl – Tulli’s daughter – who has not seen
her mom for several months.

Tulli no longer holds back and the tears flow as she holds her daughter.

Tulli is one of the lucky ones – rescued and now home with her family – but
Koirala’s crusade is to protect the thousands of other girls who will fall prey
to the traffickers every year. Her work never stops.